How to stop to-do lists ruining your life

Once we just nagged ourselves with handwritten notes. Now our phones bleep constantly with reminders. Overwhelmed with chores and helpful alerts? Get real and start deleting.
(Remember: must read this)

According to experts in cognition, mastering to-do lists has never been more important than in the digital era. But are smartphones the best means of doing so?
Photograph: Muharrem Ner/Getty Images

It’s funny how to-do lists take on the characteristics of their owners. Illegible handwriting and multiple crossings-out? Looks as though life is spilling over at the edges. Neatly written on a pristine piece of paper? A vision of self-control and restraint. And if yours is full of hysterical punctuation and self-chastisement (“Do NOT forget the milk AGAIN!!!!!!”), it might be time to talk to a therapist.

It seems a shame, then, that these little paper peculiarities are heading for extinction, as a raft of digital alternatives take their place – most of which can be found on your smartphone. Since June 2012, every Apple device running iOS 5 or above – of which there are around 1bn worldwide – comes with the Reminders app. One of the most popular on Android, ColorNote Notepad, has been downloaded more than 80m times since its 2009 launch. There are plenty of quirky offerings, too – Carrot, “the to-do list with a personality”, “hilariously” berates and cajoles you into getting things done – although dedicated to-do apps are just the beginning. They are joined by the emails we send our future selves in a cold sweat at midnight, the calendar reminders that coo and vibrate throughout the day and the tattered paper shopping list we somehow still have pinned to the fridge.

According to experts in cognition, mastering to-do lists has never been more important than in the digital era. In his book, the Organised Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, Daniel J Levitin makes it sound very sexy indeed. In fact, he claims it can help you live like a rock star.

“The most successful members of society spend less time on the mundane, and more on the inspiring, comforting and rewarding things in life,” says Levitin. His argument is that human brains can only pay attention to three or four things at any one time, so writing down a task we plan on getting to later is essential. If we don’t, “we’re afraid we’ll forget it, so our brain rehearses it, tossing it around and around in circles in something cognitive psychologists call the rehearsal loop”. Offloading those nagging internal voices by writing down tasks or thoughts we can’t explore now enables us to excel in the moment. So the list becomes the hotshot banker’s PA, holding all calls while they negotiate a big deal, or you could think of it as Pharrell’s manager, approving schedules and vetting hotel rooms, while Get Lucky is written.

Doesn’t that sound peachy? But in practice, the modern tendency to have lists in multiple places is anything but. This is because to-do lists are “useless if you forget that you made one”, says Michelle Eskritt – a professor who studies the effect of note-making on memory at Mount Saint Vincent University. “So if you use a smartphone to act as a memory store, but you can’t locate the information later, then you would probably have been better off not using it at all.” In other words, if you use the Reminder app for some tasks, calendar appointments and emails for others, you may not remember to check all of those sources. Even if you do, the experience will be a lot more stressful than just glancing at one list – you would have to review and compare all of them to know which to address first.

The answer, surely, is having one central list to refer to on a day-to-day basis. It’s tempting to curate this from your smartphone – that Swiss Army knife of a device most of us are never more than 2 ft away from – but according to neuroscientists, using phones as the source of all tasks can be a mistake.

“The medium does matter,” says technology writer Nicholas Carr, whose comparison of books and computers is quoted in Levitin’s book. “A book focuses our attention, isolates us from the myriad distractions that fill our everyday lives,” says Carr. “A networked computer does exactly the opposite.” The difference is even more pronounced when one compares the modest paper to-do list with the ultimate distraction, a smartphone – source of text messages, Instagram updates and PPI calls.

A further problem is that smartphones do not “offer obvious cues in the environment that will remind us, without effort, that we need to remember something,” according to Eskritt. Unless you set your phone to chime for every task, you must independently remember that you have something to do, then go into the device to find out what that is. That’s a lot more taxing, cognitively, than glancing at a paper to-do list next to the keyboard on your desk. So, too, is the fact that you will often use your phone to try to complete the task – whether flicking over to your email or making a phone call – while holding all the details in your brain.

If you are a particularly list-inclined person, digital versions can become especially terrifying because, unlike the fattest Moleskin notepads, they never run out of space. You can have as many different lists as your weird heart desires (“Furniture to buy if I ever get a conservatory”; “Parlour games if we host Christmas”) all of which can be of indeterminate length. Your smartphone will then upload them to the cloud, where they will live for ever. The tasks that used to fall off the bottom of our paper to-do lists – after the effort of rewriting “send Aunt Mary a thank-you card” had outweighed any optimistic sense that it would be done – stay there, glaring at us, until we coldly and actively delete them. These little failures are more difficult to gloss over.

Most to-do lists “don’t let us distinguish between stuff we want to do, but don’t have time, and stuff that we have a reasonable chance of actually completing,” says Professor Andy Miah, chair in science communication and future media at the University of Salford. “Instead, they are becoming almost like wish lists – little love letters to ourselves about things we ought to be doing. The items are all equally urgent and that sense of urgency seems also a distinguishing characteristic of our times, exacerbated by a life that is always online.”

Miah believes changes to the way we remember, caused by the omnipresence of digital technology, may explain why some of us are ever-more hooked on long lists. “The amount of content we record and share today is creating a real-time record of our lives; there is stuff we no longer need to remember, because we can save it somewhere. So instead, we have to figure out how to locate and retrieve it – this is a different way of remembering than if we just have it stored in our brains,” he explains. “Perhaps, then, we seek to jot down our thoughts more readily, in case we forget them, in case we lose some insight into the world that we cannot expect to remember in a world of endless distraction and stimulus ... it has become a way for us to keep track of things we fear will disappear into our memories and never be found again.”

“Unless you set your phone to chime for every task, you must independently remember that you have something to do, then go into the device to find out what that is.” Photograph: PhotoAlto/Alamy

Anyone who has added a completed task to their to-do list – simply to experience the satisfaction of immediately crossing it out – might argue that to-do lists have always been about more than utilitarian productivity systems. The jokes and asides in Shaun Usher’s compendium Lists of Note, for example, such as Johnny Cash’s to-do list of instructions to “kiss June”, “not kiss anyone else” and “worry”, are often far from functional. As Dr Claudia Aguirre, resident neuroscientist at mindfulness company Headspace.com, says: “Writing can be a powerful tool to help deal with our thoughts and emotions; some researchers believe it can simplify and organise fragmented memories.”

Recent studies have also shown that people are more likely to recall and understand information they have written by hand, rather than typed into a laptop. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that, in Levitin’s experience, a remarkable number of high achievers take a low-tech approach. “I’ve interviewed Nobel prize winners and successful people, many of whom are surrounded by high tech in their professions, and was astonished by the number that chose to use 5x3 inch index cards as to-do lists,” he says. Levitin himself uses this system, writing one task on each card, reviewing and reprioritising them before bed and in the morning: “On a written list you have to cross things out and reorder them. Index cards can be reprioritised physically, which enables you to be nimble.”

Many of my most organised friends and colleagues described similar strategies: picking three or four things that can realistically be done that day – three for work, one for home, perhaps – and getting those done before thinking about a longer master list. Helena Morrissey – the Newton Investment Management chief executive who has become something of an emblem for time management given that, as well as managing a £50bn City fund, she also has nine children, agrees: “One list is immediate – what I need to do each day – which I enter into my Blackberry first thing in the morning. I delete items as they’re done, but rarely cross them all off, so the remaining list is the starting point for the next day. That list obviously might include preparing for future events, but the tasks themselves are very much of the moment, focused on now. That helps me to prioritise and stops me getting overwhelmed. Things to do with my family are on that list alongside work. The other list is in my head, rolling along, a constant – and open – evolution of what I’m thinking and what actions might be needed to progress those thoughts.”

Certainly, the longer our lists, the more lists we have, the more likely we are to feel overwhelmed. Andy Puddicombe, co-founder of Headspace.com, would prescribe meditation for that. “It’s the attitude we bring to the list that makes the difference,” he says. “There is always more to do in life. We could be constantly busy, so really we have to make a decision to take time out. Once you start to meditate,” he says, “you often come to see that tasks which you thought were urgent only felt urgent.”

Having a streamlined to-do list is a real measure of self-discipline, given that merely writing a task on the list can give some us a buzz. “There is still the strong belief that merely thinking positively and setting oneself respective goals suffices to do the job,” says Peter Gollwitzer, a professor of psychology at New York University. In 1993, Gollwitzer invented “If-Then” planning, a system that encourages not simply itemising tasks but considering how they can actually be done. “Psychology has so far primarily focused on the ‘what’ and not on the ‘how’ of goal attainment,” he says. “That’s unfortunate. When we have set a goal we still need to plan out how to reach it.”

So, with If-Then planning, if you want to write a report on Saturday, you could say: IF I have finished my breakfast on Saturday morning, THEN I will take a cup of coffee to my home desk and start writing the first paragraph. That “makes the initiation of the intended action very hard to forget”, he says. “The critical situation is readily detected (when breakfast is finished) and the intended action (starting to write) is initiated immediately without further thought – action initiation has become automated.”

Similarly, says Levitin: “The big problem many of us have with our to-do lists is that the tasks aren’t actually doable. We say, for example, ‘decide whether it’s time for grandma to move into a rest home’. But what does that actually mean?” The task at the top of your list should be an achievable start: “Talk to a doctor” or “visit rest homes” or “talk to my sisters about grandma”. By investing time working out how you are actually going to do each thing on your lists, and therefore proving that it is possible to achieve, your to-do list can no longer be a long, rambling litany of wishes. Hopefully, you will also then have fewer things on your list. Really, that is the crux of the matter: accepting that there are only so many things one can actually achieve in a day – in a year or a lifetime – and paring back accordingly.

Technological developments aren’t all bad, of course; Levitin believes they could soon help our lists become shorter. “Bar code scanners and sFridge sensors can detect when you’re running out of milk or yogurt, and then notify you when your phone is in or near a grocery store. Facebook already reminds you when it’s a friend’s birthday. My car reminds me when it needs gas.”

“We need to look at the digital to-do list as an opportunity to reinvent what kinds of things we think are worth doing,” Miah adds. “Unfortunately, I’ve not yet discovered an app that asks me whether I really, really want to add something to my to do list, or whether I’d be better off focusing on something else. But, give it time.”

A handy list to help you master your other to-do lists

1. Streamline your day-to-day tasks

Having some reminders in an email, others in a calendar and yet more on a tatty piece of paper is a recipe for missed deadlines and confusion.

2. Don’t load your list with unachievable assignments

Think about how and when you would achieve a task on your list before you commit to it. Break huge, difficult jobs into smaller achievable steps.

3. Don’t use your to-do list as a memory aid

It’s tempting to put every passing thought on to-do lists – particularly digital versions, which never run out of space. But having scores of impossible wishes on your list will only camouflage those tasks that you actually need to do.

4. Consider grouping your to-do lists by deadline

It’s a relief to look at your to-do list and know, immediately, which tasks are urgent. One strategy is to have three versions: one “now” list for immediate tasks, another for things to do over the next week, and a third for those annoying duties you will get to when you have run out of excuses.

5. Then pare down your “now” list

Pick an achievable amount of tasks – three is a good number – to complete each day. Leave other tasks on your longer term lists until you have ticked off the most important.

6. Don’t keep your to-do list in your smart phone

Controversial, for some, but flicking between a digital to-do list and the other functions of your phone is cognitively exhausting. That goes for your digital calendar, too. Try reverting to the old-school system: a paper to-do list tucked into a leather-bound diary.

7. Or try an even more low-tech approach

According to cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist Daniel J Letvin, many successful people use 5x3 inch index cards to plan their tasks, writing one “to-do” on each card. The key here is that, unlike a long paper list, cards can be re-prioritised without any effort – and the ability to prioritise your tasks with ease is crucial to avoiding feeling overtaxed in the moment.